5 ms·

"I think you need a better system, and I think it’s probably going to be more like an apprenticeship or an internship, where you bring people on with a much eas

by sp3dy5 3y ago

"I think you need a better system, and I think it’s probably going to be more like an apprenticeship or an internship, where you bring people on with a much easier filter at the beginning. And you hire them kind of on an experimental basis or on a training basis, and then you have to sort of see what they can do in the first month or two." How does he expect this to work? Developers quit their job to "try out" and some percentage just get fired immediately?

monknomo 3y ago
I think more aggressive use of probationary period, and more narrative interviews would probably work fine and be less stress on both sides of the hiring
- 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
  How is a probationary period less stressful for the employee? Quit my current gig with salary + health insurance, only to work at a new place where I might get suddenly let go after three months? Then I am working against the clock to keep bread on the table. Let alone people who might have visa situations. Sure, you can always be fired at the drop of a hat, but significantly worrisome to walk away from a stable situation for a new job where firing is more easily performed.
  - monknomo 3y ago
    It isn't, but I'm pretty sure the status quo is a time consuming interview with lots of puzzle solving coupled with a probationary period and a vesting cliff. I think because hiring is so difficult (on both sides of the table) that people get cold feet with marginal performers during the probationary period. Employees are reluctant to leave - interviewing is very hard, and managers are reluctant to fire - sourcing is very hard. My thesis is that if interviewing was easier, both leaving and sourcing would be easier and everyone would win
- amenhotep 3y ago
  > more narrative interviews Please no.
financltravsty 3y ago
Just swap to contract-to-hire. Easier interviews, entry levels can break in, etc.
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  I've done this at a few companies as a hiring manager--offer the candidates a 10 hour/week (or whatever they can commit to) contract to do X thing until Y date. They set their own hours, but they can't expect folks to be available afterhours. Evaluate how far they got based on the hours they committed. Typically shows how their work style will be, but can't really evaluate their interpersonal skills/"meeting persona".
  - circusfly 3y ago
    The contract to hire contracts I've worked as a developer the past 30 years were either 3 month or 6 month periods and 40 hours per week. No offense but I'd be highly suspicious of someone offering contract to hire only 10 hours per week, it doesn't sound like the company has much skin in the game.
    - jimbokun 3y ago
      10 hours/week is really just a compensated job interview.
    - nottorp 3y ago
      I think you're replying to a post proposing 10/week instead of the 30 interviews. Not instead of actual hiring. Would work just fine for both parties if you're employed and open to changing jobs, for example.
  - sanderjd 3y ago
    Sounds great for entry-level, and terrible for people leaving jobs for new ones. It's an enormous life-changing decision to invest energy into leaving a job for a new one. I'm never going to do that for "a 10 hour/week contract to do X thing until Y date", and neither are any of the people I'd love to hire.
yodsanklai 3y ago
It's not unheard of. Some company fire low-performers without second thoughts. I work in a big tech company, and I've been quite surprised to see young recruits "disappear", even though the entry bar is high. I'd be curious to know the stats.
whstl 3y ago
That's not far from having a proper probation period.
tetromino_ 3y ago
It would work wonderfully for candidates who don't currently have a job, or at least a job they have much interest in keeping. Examples: * newly graduated student * someone who wants to break into software engineering from an unrelated industry * someone re-entering the workforce after an extended leave (e.g. caring for a child, parent, or one's own medical issues) For someone like you who (I assume) is currently employed as a software engineer, it's obviously a worse option than the traditional leetcode-oriented interview.
a_c 3y ago
I think we should "invert, always invert", as Charlie Munger put it. Why do we expect a N-session by M-hour interview be a reliable signal that a candidate is someone you want to work together with for at least a month or two. And many companies not only have an ineffective hiring process, but also an ineffective firing one. Well, what about work together for a month or two and see how things go
- sumtechguy 3y ago
  I would also add ineffective onboarding. Two places I showed up 'we will not have your computer for at least 2 weeks'.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    Oh I haven’t had that happen in such a very long time. Like CI, onboarding is a process we get better at by doing. If I work some place that hires consistently, I’ll make sure to sit with a new engineer at least once a year to 18 months and observe them going through the documented process. Save them when they get stuck, and rephrase that part of the documentation. I’ll also prompt them to make changes as well, for one very particular reason: when you encounter a jargon term for the first time maybe the first half dozen times, you still have Beginner’s mind. You can still explain it to someone below you on the ladder. Senior staff can get trapped in circular definitions and unspoken assumptions. Generally speaking, I find that the people who hate ramping up new engineers have made a mess that they don’t like to think about, and onboarding makes them look at it.
    - cylentwolf 3y ago
      I find that for most seniors, you should follow the documentation with check ins from current employees. If the documentation is obtuse then have the new hire correct it so that the next new hire having the same information at that point will understand what to do better.
      - hinkley 3y ago
michaelt 3y ago
It might be possible for a company like Google, which is so buried in qualified applicants that they could decide to only hire left-handed people born on a Monday and they'd still be able to fill all their open positions. Especially if you're the kind of company that doesn't need to make many experienced hires, but recruits a lot of people straight off college campuses.
melenaboija 3y ago
Yes they do and I actually think it is a fair way to hire. In other professional areas if you want entry level salaries of 150k that can get you up to 500k you have to take extra education like masters, mbas or whatever, which means time and money. In software engineering you have to spend hours in hackerrank or leetcode and I would personally prefer to spend that time in a big company as an intern, even as a grown professional in the same way you take management programa. I think that time would be more profitable than doing brain teasers and for sure we (the company and I) will get to know each other.
- HumblyTossed 3y ago
  > Yes they do and I actually think it is a fair way to hire. ... if you want to hire a bunch of fresh, young developers.
  - jimbokun 3y ago
    Yes, that was Spolsky's point. This is a good way to diversify the talent pool by bringing new people into the industry.
- feoren 3y ago
  > entry level salaries of 150k that can get you up to 500k Only a tiny minority of programmers work in Silicon Valley. Those numbers are completely unrealistic everywhere else in the world. Don't act like we make the same as doctors and lawyers.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    (While I agree with the former, we do often make about the same as doctors in our own market once you subtract their liability insurance. Then factor in more opportunity cost and college bills at the beginning of their careers…)
  - School-Cotton 3y ago
    Most lawyers don’t work at firms that pay top salaries either.
bluGill 3y ago
Call a contract organization and bring in a few people for a 6 month contract. At the end of the contract offer jobs to the good ones. 6 Months is only because that is what contract organizations want - you can buy the good people out sooner, but they need 6 months from people to make their budgets work. 6 months is plenty of time to ensure you know if someone is bad or just slow to get productive, but not too long to pay someone who is not worth it.
- sanity 3y ago
  That's if your agreement with the contract company allows you to recruit their people.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    I’ve had that happen a few times. Generally there may be a signing fee paid to the contractor. Though in one case I got the job first and the contracting house second. BigCo had approved vendors but was having trouble finding people with the skill sets they needed.
- mistrial9 3y ago
  there is a lot of financial incentive to just dump everyone and restart again and again; also financial incentive to extract work beyond the terms of the agreement, and to invent failure to justify reducing new offers. Some senior management looks for people who signal that they can and will do this to others, also hire intermediaries to oversee the process who will bear false witness against the employed. Magnify all of this in the USA where access to health care (or a green card) are contingent on employment.
- flavius29663 3y ago
  That leaves you only with candidates that are willing to work on a contract. Most are not that desperate. Do you want desperate employees? then go ahead. Also, don't be surprised when people that like contract work jump ship as soon as something slightly better appears on the horizon.
hinkley 3y ago
Programming would be much easier from a job-seeking aspect if we didn’t have private medical insurance, and it would be amazing if we also had UBI. Try stuff out, fail, try again.
- alternatex 3y ago
  I don't think the average software developer in the US is paying anything close to the average rate for rents or mortgages, so I'm not sure how you think UBI would help keep them afloat in between jobs.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    Financial discipline doesn’t help you with a cracked filling or a broken arm. If you’re really honest with yourself, and us, the people who say they can’t afford to quit their job (for financial reasons) we think less of those people. It’s not because we’re petty, it’s because they’re living beyond their means in a profession where that is just so dumb you have to question their judgement on other things. If they say they have to stay because they need the insurance (for themselves or especially their family) we collectively groan and bitch about the state of medicine. UBI for devs isn’t to pay rent, it’s to lower your burn rate between jobs.
roughly 3y ago
Whole lotta comments here about how much better this is for the hiring org, and sure, I guess, but we can’t get candidates to do a 2hr take-home assignment at their own pace to knock half a day off the interview process, I don’t know how the hell you expect someone to commit to working at your shop for 3 months. Re: “call it a contract” - sure, and I should just take COBRA during your evaluation period? Absolutely if you’re hiring new grads, go nuts with whatever this is, but if you’re looking for people with existing careers and responsibilities, this ain’t gonna work.
- evantbyrne 3y ago
  I would have considered that back when I was actively looking–if I were being offered senior contractor rates. That's $150/hour minimum these days. I'm guessing that's not what they had in mind, but you never know!
  - coffeebeqn 3y ago
    Heck I’d just become a professional interviewee
- mathgeek 3y ago
  > ...but we can’t get candidates to do a 2hr take-home assignment at their own pace to knock half a day off the interview process... Any decent submission for this type of exam takes more than two hours, and while the hiring company can view it as reducing the amount of time spent interviewing, it's just as stressful if not more so for the candidate. Throw in the time it takes to review and/or have a followup session to discuss with the candidate, and it's not a useful way to reduce interview time.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    You can say just spend a couple hours on it but, unless it's really trivial, if the candidate wants the job, they'll spend the weekend on it--because they know other candidates will.
marcosdumay 3y ago
A lot of places have a promote-or-fire culture. Although that's often linked to abusive work practices. You would get into a job with a small salary, and the expectation you'll have a larger one in an year or so.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
ozim 3y ago
If companies could hire 1-2 devs in 6-12 months that would work. So not fired immediately but after 3 months or so and only if they really suck, not some hunger games style, survival of the fittest but if you hire 2 guys with intention to keep them if they are at least decent it seems fair and if one or both are not even decent, try to cut it as soon as possible. Everything breaks when you have to hire 20 devs in 6 months. There is no process for hiring at that rate.
dimal 3y ago
In most other industries, it works this way. If a hire isn’t performing, they have a process called “firing” in which the person stops working for the company and they stop paying them a salary. It’s kind of like a layoff except it’s just one person. It’s also an incentive for the worker to do a decent job instead of rest-and-vest.
- ndjshe3838 3y ago
  It’s called probation
- ghaff 3y ago
  Defaults matter though. If getting rid of someone after a probationary period is a rare event, that's different from it being pretty common.
  - evantbyrne 3y ago
    The more I think about this the less sense it makes. Over-hiring expensive tech workers with planned firings after a few months will burn incredible amounts of cash. If management can't effectively evaluate candidates for a single role, then why assume they will have success by increasing the number of employees? And if engineering management can't evaluate candidates, then they probably stink at onboarding as well, so that initial period will likely prove very little about the new hires. They also have to communicate their intentions up-front not only for ethical reasons but to avoid lawsuits from fired employees that almost certainly have the resources to sue for any alternative opportunities that they were screwed out of. So the company has to compensate people for their risk to even get qualified candidates, which means paying contract rates.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      To be clear, internships/co-ops/summer jobs can make a lot of sense for university students. But, even new grads, if they get cut after 3 months (and it can take a while for a new grad to get into work life), they're now on the street outside their university placement resources and on-campus interview flow.

by sp3dy5 3y ago

monknomo 3y ago

I think more aggressive use of probationary period, and more narrative interviews would probably work fine and be less stress on both sides of the hiring

0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
How is a probationary period less stressful for the employee? Quit my current gig with salary + health insurance, only to work at a new place where I might get suddenly let go after three months? Then I am working against the clock to keep bread on the table. Let alone people who might have visa situations. Sure, you can always be fired at the drop of a hat, but significantly worrisome to walk away from a stable situation for a new job where firing is more easily performed.
- monknomo 3y ago
  It isn't, but I'm pretty sure the status quo is a time consuming interview with lots of puzzle solving coupled with a probationary period and a vesting cliff. I think because hiring is so difficult (on both sides of the table) that people get cold feet with marginal performers during the probationary period. Employees are reluctant to leave - interviewing is very hard, and managers are reluctant to fire - sourcing is very hard. My thesis is that if interviewing was easier, both leaving and sourcing would be easier and everyone would win
amenhotep 3y ago
> more narrative interviews Please no.

financltravsty 3y ago

Just swap to contract-to-hire. Easier interviews, entry levels can break in, etc.

candiddevmike 3y ago
I've done this at a few companies as a hiring manager--offer the candidates a 10 hour/week (or whatever they can commit to) contract to do X thing until Y date. They set their own hours, but they can't expect folks to be available afterhours. Evaluate how far they got based on the hours they committed. Typically shows how their work style will be, but can't really evaluate their interpersonal skills/"meeting persona".
- circusfly 3y ago
  The contract to hire contracts I've worked as a developer the past 30 years were either 3 month or 6 month periods and 40 hours per week. No offense but I'd be highly suspicious of someone offering contract to hire only 10 hours per week, it doesn't sound like the company has much skin in the game.
  - jimbokun 3y ago
    10 hours/week is really just a compensated job interview.
  - nottorp 3y ago
    I think you're replying to a post proposing 10/week instead of the 30 interviews. Not instead of actual hiring. Would work just fine for both parties if you're employed and open to changing jobs, for example.
- sanderjd 3y ago
  Sounds great for entry-level, and terrible for people leaving jobs for new ones. It's an enormous life-changing decision to invest energy into leaving a job for a new one. I'm never going to do that for "a 10 hour/week contract to do X thing until Y date", and neither are any of the people I'd love to hire.

yodsanklai 3y ago

It's not unheard of. Some company fire low-performers without second thoughts. I work in a big tech company, and I've been quite surprised to see young recruits "disappear", even though the entry bar is high. I'd be curious to know the stats.

whstl 3y ago

That's not far from having a proper probation period.

tetromino_ 3y ago

It would work wonderfully for candidates who don't currently have a job, or at least a job they have much interest in keeping. Examples: * newly graduated student * someone who wants to break into software engineering from an unrelated industry * someone re-entering the workforce after an extended leave (e.g. caring for a child, parent, or one's own medical issues) For someone like you who (I assume) is currently employed as a software engineer, it's obviously a worse option than the traditional leetcode-oriented interview.

a_c 3y ago

I think we should "invert, always invert", as Charlie Munger put it. Why do we expect a N-session by M-hour interview be a reliable signal that a candidate is someone you want to work together with for at least a month or two. And many companies not only have an ineffective hiring process, but also an ineffective firing one. Well, what about work together for a month or two and see how things go

sumtechguy 3y ago
I would also add ineffective onboarding. Two places I showed up 'we will not have your computer for at least 2 weeks'.
- hinkley 3y ago
  Oh I haven’t had that happen in such a very long time. Like CI, onboarding is a process we get better at by doing. If I work some place that hires consistently, I’ll make sure to sit with a new engineer at least once a year to 18 months and observe them going through the documented process. Save them when they get stuck, and rephrase that part of the documentation. I’ll also prompt them to make changes as well, for one very particular reason: when you encounter a jargon term for the first time maybe the first half dozen times, you still have Beginner’s mind. You can still explain it to someone below you on the ladder. Senior staff can get trapped in circular definitions and unspoken assumptions. Generally speaking, I find that the people who hate ramping up new engineers have made a mess that they don’t like to think about, and onboarding makes them look at it.
  - cylentwolf 3y ago
    I find that for most seniors, you should follow the documentation with check ins from current employees. If the documentation is obtuse then have the new hire correct it so that the next new hire having the same information at that point will understand what to do better.
    - hinkley 3y ago

michaelt 3y ago

It might be possible for a company like Google, which is so buried in qualified applicants that they could decide to only hire left-handed people born on a Monday and they'd still be able to fill all their open positions. Especially if you're the kind of company that doesn't need to make many experienced hires, but recruits a lot of people straight off college campuses.

melenaboija 3y ago

Yes they do and I actually think it is a fair way to hire. In other professional areas if you want entry level salaries of 150k that can get you up to 500k you have to take extra education like masters, mbas or whatever, which means time and money. In software engineering you have to spend hours in hackerrank or leetcode and I would personally prefer to spend that time in a big company as an intern, even as a grown professional in the same way you take management programa. I think that time would be more profitable than doing brain teasers and for sure we (the company and I) will get to know each other.

HumblyTossed 3y ago
> Yes they do and I actually think it is a fair way to hire. ... if you want to hire a bunch of fresh, young developers.
- jimbokun 3y ago
  Yes, that was Spolsky's point. This is a good way to diversify the talent pool by bringing new people into the industry.
feoren 3y ago
> entry level salaries of 150k that can get you up to 500k Only a tiny minority of programmers work in Silicon Valley. Those numbers are completely unrealistic everywhere else in the world. Don't act like we make the same as doctors and lawyers.
- hinkley 3y ago
  (While I agree with the former, we do often make about the same as doctors in our own market once you subtract their liability insurance. Then factor in more opportunity cost and college bills at the beginning of their careers…)
- School-Cotton 3y ago
  Most lawyers don’t work at firms that pay top salaries either.

bluGill 3y ago

Call a contract organization and bring in a few people for a 6 month contract. At the end of the contract offer jobs to the good ones. 6 Months is only because that is what contract organizations want - you can buy the good people out sooner, but they need 6 months from people to make their budgets work. 6 months is plenty of time to ensure you know if someone is bad or just slow to get productive, but not too long to pay someone who is not worth it.

sanity 3y ago
That's if your agreement with the contract company allows you to recruit their people.
- hinkley 3y ago
  I’ve had that happen a few times. Generally there may be a signing fee paid to the contractor. Though in one case I got the job first and the contracting house second. BigCo had approved vendors but was having trouble finding people with the skill sets they needed.
mistrial9 3y ago
there is a lot of financial incentive to just dump everyone and restart again and again; also financial incentive to extract work beyond the terms of the agreement, and to invent failure to justify reducing new offers. Some senior management looks for people who signal that they can and will do this to others, also hire intermediaries to oversee the process who will bear false witness against the employed. Magnify all of this in the USA where access to health care (or a green card) are contingent on employment.
flavius29663 3y ago
That leaves you only with candidates that are willing to work on a contract. Most are not that desperate. Do you want desperate employees? then go ahead. Also, don't be surprised when people that like contract work jump ship as soon as something slightly better appears on the horizon.

hinkley 3y ago

Programming would be much easier from a job-seeking aspect if we didn’t have private medical insurance, and it would be amazing if we also had UBI. Try stuff out, fail, try again.

alternatex 3y ago
I don't think the average software developer in the US is paying anything close to the average rate for rents or mortgages, so I'm not sure how you think UBI would help keep them afloat in between jobs.
- hinkley 3y ago
  Financial discipline doesn’t help you with a cracked filling or a broken arm. If you’re really honest with yourself, and us, the people who say they can’t afford to quit their job (for financial reasons) we think less of those people. It’s not because we’re petty, it’s because they’re living beyond their means in a profession where that is just so dumb you have to question their judgement on other things. If they say they have to stay because they need the insurance (for themselves or especially their family) we collectively groan and bitch about the state of medicine. UBI for devs isn’t to pay rent, it’s to lower your burn rate between jobs.

roughly 3y ago

Whole lotta comments here about how much better this is for the hiring org, and sure, I guess, but we can’t get candidates to do a 2hr take-home assignment at their own pace to knock half a day off the interview process, I don’t know how the hell you expect someone to commit to working at your shop for 3 months. Re: “call it a contract” - sure, and I should just take COBRA during your evaluation period? Absolutely if you’re hiring new grads, go nuts with whatever this is, but if you’re looking for people with existing careers and responsibilities, this ain’t gonna work.

evantbyrne 3y ago
I would have considered that back when I was actively looking–if I were being offered senior contractor rates. That's $150/hour minimum these days. I'm guessing that's not what they had in mind, but you never know!
- coffeebeqn 3y ago
  Heck I’d just become a professional interviewee
mathgeek 3y ago
> ...but we can’t get candidates to do a 2hr take-home assignment at their own pace to knock half a day off the interview process... Any decent submission for this type of exam takes more than two hours, and while the hiring company can view it as reducing the amount of time spent interviewing, it's just as stressful if not more so for the candidate. Throw in the time it takes to review and/or have a followup session to discuss with the candidate, and it's not a useful way to reduce interview time.
- ghaff 3y ago
  You can say just spend a couple hours on it but, unless it's really trivial, if the candidate wants the job, they'll spend the weekend on it--because they know other candidates will.

marcosdumay 3y ago

A lot of places have a promote-or-fire culture. Although that's often linked to abusive work practices. You would get into a job with a small salary, and the expectation you'll have a larger one in an year or so.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

ozim 3y ago

If companies could hire 1-2 devs in 6-12 months that would work. So not fired immediately but after 3 months or so and only if they really suck, not some hunger games style, survival of the fittest but if you hire 2 guys with intention to keep them if they are at least decent it seems fair and if one or both are not even decent, try to cut it as soon as possible. Everything breaks when you have to hire 20 devs in 6 months. There is no process for hiring at that rate.

dimal 3y ago

In most other industries, it works this way. If a hire isn’t performing, they have a process called “firing” in which the person stops working for the company and they stop paying them a salary. It’s kind of like a layoff except it’s just one person. It’s also an incentive for the worker to do a decent job instead of rest-and-vest.

ndjshe3838 3y ago
It’s called probation
ghaff 3y ago
Defaults matter though. If getting rid of someone after a probationary period is a rare event, that's different from it being pretty common.
- evantbyrne 3y ago
  The more I think about this the less sense it makes. Over-hiring expensive tech workers with planned firings after a few months will burn incredible amounts of cash. If management can't effectively evaluate candidates for a single role, then why assume they will have success by increasing the number of employees? And if engineering management can't evaluate candidates, then they probably stink at onboarding as well, so that initial period will likely prove very little about the new hires. They also have to communicate their intentions up-front not only for ethical reasons but to avoid lawsuits from fired employees that almost certainly have the resources to sue for any alternative opportunities that they were screwed out of. So the company has to compensate people for their risk to even get qualified candidates, which means paying contract rates.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    To be clear, internships/co-ops/summer jobs can make a lot of sense for university students. But, even new grads, if they get cut after 3 months (and it can take a while for a new grad to get into work life), they're now on the street outside their university placement resources and on-campus interview flow.